StoryLoop 🌀

AI Learning Stories for Early Childhood Educators

Turn 3 bullet points into a beautiful, EYLF-aligned learning story in under 30 seconds. Built for educators across Australia and New Zealand.

A division of Aria Care. Built by Leo Bons in Christchurch, New Zealand 🇳🇿

---

What it does

Educators spend 30+ minutes writing each learning story. StoryLoop does it in 30 seconds. Voice-record or type a few observations, and the AI writes a warm, EYLF-aligned story with learning outcomes and extension suggestions. Educators review, edit, and publish. Hours saved every week.

Pricing

Plan	AUD	NZD	Limit
Free	$0	$0	3 stories/month
Educator	$19/mo	$21/mo	Unlimited stories
Educator Pro	$29/mo	$33/mo	Unlimited, plus child profiles and family translation
Centre Starter	$99/mo	$109/mo	10 educator seats, unlimited children
Centre Growth	$199/mo	$219/mo	25 educator seats, unlimited children

Individual plans start with a 7-day free trial, centre plans with a 30-day free trial. Live prices: https://storyloop.space/pricing

---

Tech Stack

• Next.js 15 (App Router, TypeScript)
• Tailwind CSS + custom warm editorial theme (Fraunces + Manrope)
• Supabase (auth, Postgres with RLS, hosted in Sydney)
• Stripe (subscriptions + 7-day trials, AUD + NZD)
• Resend (activation, retention, and upgrade lifecycle emails)
• OpenAI GPT-5.5 (primary) with Anthropic Claude as the backup writer
• Vercel deploy target

---

🚀 Deployment Guide

Step 1 — Supabase

1. Create a project at supabase.com (free tier is fine)
2. Choose region: Sydney (ap-southeast-2) for AU/NZ users
3. Go to SQL Editor → paste the entire contents of supabase/schema.sql → Run
4. Settings → API → copy three values:
   • NEXT_PUBLIC_SUPABASE_URL
   • NEXT_PUBLIC_SUPABASE_ANON_KEY
   • SUPABASE_SERVICE_ROLE_KEY (keep secret!)
5. Authentication → Providers:
   • Enable Email (require confirmation: yes)
   • Under Auth Settings → URL Configuration, set Site URL to https://storyloop.space

Step 2 — OpenAI (required for AI)

1. Go to platform.openai.com → API Keys
2. Create a new key → copy it as OPENAI_API_KEY
3. Set up billing (GPT-4o-mini costs ~$0.0002 per story — 1000 stories = $0.20)

Step 3 — Stripe

1. In your existing Stripe account (or create new)
2. Products → create one product: "StoryLoop"
3. Add 4 prices under that product:

Nickname	Currency	Amount	Billing
Educator AUD	AUD	$19.00	Monthly
Educator NZD	NZD	$21.00	Monthly
Centre AUD	AUD	$49.00	Monthly
Centre NZD	NZD	$55.00	Monthly

4. Copy each price ID (starts with price_) into env vars
5. Developers → Webhooks → Add endpoint:
   • URL: https://storyloop.space/api/stripe/webhook
   • Events: checkout.session.completed, customer.subscription.created, customer.subscription.updated, customer.subscription.deleted, invoice.payment_failed
   • Copy the signing secret → STRIPE_WEBHOOK_SECRET
6. Settings → Billing → Customer portal → Activate
7. Optional activation offer:
   • Create a once-off coupon for the first month
   • Set its coupon ID as STRIPE_FIRST_MONTH_COUPON_ID
   • Set a customer-facing label as STRIPE_FIRST_MONTH_COUPON_LABEL

Step 4 — Resend email

1. Verify the sending domain in Resend.
2. Set RESEND_API_KEY.
3. Set EMAIL_FROM to StoryLoop by Aria Care <[email protected]>.
4. Set EMAIL_REPLY_TO to the founder/support inbox.
5. Set EMAIL_UNSUBSCRIBE_SECRET to a random 32+ character secret.

Step 5 — Environment Variables

Copy .env.example to .env.local and fill in every value:

cp .env.example .env.local

Generate a JWT secret:

node -e "console.log(require('crypto').randomBytes(32).toString('hex'))"

Paste it as ADMIN_JWT_SECRET.

Required production env vars now include:

• RESEND_API_KEY
• EMAIL_FROM
• EMAIL_REPLY_TO
• EMAIL_UNSUBSCRIBE_SECRET
• STRIPE_FIRST_MONTH_COUPON_ID if activation offers should auto-apply
• STRIPE_FIRST_MONTH_COUPON_LABEL for email/UI copy
• CRON_SECRET for monthly reset and lifecycle email automation

Step 6 — Run locally

npm install
npm run dev
# → http://localhost:3000

Step 7 — Deploy to Vercel

git init
git add .
git commit -m "StoryLoop v1.0"
git remote add origin https://github.com/YOUR-USERNAME/storyloop.git
git push -u origin main

Then at vercel.com:

1. Import project → select the repo
2. Add every environment variable from your .env.local
3. Deploy

Update your Stripe webhook URL to match your Vercel URL after first deploy.

Step 8 — Activate admin access

1. Set ADMIN_EMAIL to the authorised administrator account.
2. Generate a bcrypt hash locally and set it as ADMIN_PASSWORD_HASH.
3. Set a random ADMIN_JWT_SECRET of at least 32 characters.
4. Redeploy, then visit https://storyloop.space/admin-login.

---

🎯 Go-to-market playbook

Week 1: SEO foundation

StoryLoop is built to rank on Google. Key pages target:

• "learning story template"
• "EYLF learning story examples"
• "learning story generator"
• "childcare documentation AI"

Submit sitemap to Google Search Console after deploy.

Week 2: One Facebook post

Post once in 2-3 early childhood educator groups:

"Built a free tool that writes learning stories from your observations — made it because my friend who works in childcare was spending 2 hours every night on these. Free to try, would love honest feedback from people who do this job."

That's it. No spam, no repeated posts. If it's good, it spreads.

Month 1+: Let it compound

• Every free user who pays = pure profit
• Every story written improves SEO-able content
• Every Facebook share compounds over time

Target: 200 paid users × $19 = $3,800/month with zero human sales.

---

📂 File Structure

storyloop/
├── app/
│   ├── (auth)/login, signup
│   ├── (app)/dashboard, generate, history, billing
│   ├── (admin)/admin, admin-login
│   ├── api/
│   │   ├── generate (main AI route)
│   │   ├── me (current profile)
│   │   ├── stripe/checkout, webhook, portal
│   │   └── admin/login, logout, users
│   ├── auth/callback
│   ├── about, privacy, terms
│   └── page.tsx (landing)
├── components/landing/ (9 sections)
├── components/app/ (DashboardNav)
├── lib/
│   ├── ai/ (generate.ts, prompts.ts)
│   ├── supabase/ (client, server, admin)
│   └── admin-auth.ts (JWT session verification)
├── supabase/schema.sql
├── middleware.ts
└── public/logo.svg, favicon.svg

---

🔐 Security notes

• Admin password is bcrypt-hashed — never stored plaintext in the codebase
• Admin sessions are signed JWTs with 7-day expiry
• All DB access goes through Supabase RLS (row-level security)
• Service role key only used in server-side API routes
• Webhook signature verification on every Stripe event
• Input sanitisation and rate limiting on the AI endpoint

---

🛠 Maintenance

Scheduled jobs — add these Vercel crons (already in vercel.json):

{
  "crons": [
    { "path": "/api/cron/reset-usage", "schedule": "0 0 1 * *" },
    { "path": "/api/cron/email-automation", "schedule": "0 */6 * * *" }
  ]
}

Or manually run this in Supabase SQL editor on the 1st of each month:

SELECT public.reset_monthly_usage();

---

Built with care, for the people who care for the next generation. 🌱

— Leo Bons, Founder · [email protected]